Don't Be Hasty
by Angelus1
Summary: Timing is everything. Direct sequel to "Catch the Wind".
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** Timing is everything. Direct sequel to "Catch the Wind".

**Spoilers:** "A Daze of Wine and Roaches"-"Snow Day".

**Disclaimer:** Danny, Lindsay, Mac, Stella, Hawkes, Flack, and all other recognizable characters herein are property of CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, Anthony Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn, and Alliance Atlantis. I receive no compensation from this work of fiction and intend no copyright infringement.

**Author's Notes:** "Snow Day" implied that it was Danny and Lindsay's first time together. I'm...not so sure that I buy that. Try as I may, I can come up with no plausible reasons as to why they would have waited that long. After Bozeman, all of the previously-established obstacles to their relationship were completely obliterated. However, several episodes passed after "Sleight Out of Hand". So this is my attempt at explaining away that gap while still remaining in-canon. It ended up a bit hokey, almost out of necessity - I mean there are only so many times that one can get interrupted before it becomes something straight out of a bad romantic comedy. And let me say, this was SO much fun to write. I know people talk about how the characters got away from them and just started doing things on their own, but I had never had that happen before. This story, however...oh, Danny. He just insisted upon being completely adorable at every given opportunity.

Takes place immediately following "Catch the Wind" both that story and this first part are set between 3.18, "Sleight Out of Hand", and 3.19, "A Daze of Wine and Roaches". There will be about 4 more parts to this story, covering the time between "A Daze of Wine and Roaches" and 3.24, "Snow Day". Beyond that, I'm considering expanding this little universe into a series, but I've been so unproductive fic-wise lately that I'm not making any promises.

* * *

  
Danny wanted, more than anything, to lose himself inside Lindsay's kiss, but common sense forced him to keep one eye on their path of travel. It wouldn't be prudent, after all, to pull up to the scene with his hands under her shirt. She made it extremely difficult to keep on-task - he found his eyes fluttering closed despite his best efforts. But even with eyelids darkening his vision he was still able to detect the flashing lights of the squad car blockade as they approached, and reluctantly tore himself away from her lips.

"Hey buddy, I don't think you're gonna get across the bridge anytime tonight," the cabbie informed them. Danny drew in a shaky breath, only just then remembering the third presence inside the car. He shot Lindsay a sheepish look.

"Don't worry about it, this is good. Take her to Staten Island, okay?"

"Buddy, I'll take her down to Atlantic City as long as somebody's payin' for it." Grinning, Danny slipped him a handful of bills and turned back to his partner. "Okay Montana, you're on your own." Lindsay rolled her eyes.

"All alone in this big ol' city?" she mocked, pouring on the accent for his benefit. "How will I ever survive?" Danny was still grinning. Outside the window, he could see Stella pretending not to watch them. So much for a goodbye kiss. "Got an audience?" Lindsay asked knowingly.

"Like it's a surprise. Luckily, she can't see under the window." Without hesitation, he reached over and slid his hand all the way up Lindsay's thigh, thumb stroking roughly against the inseam of her jeans.

"Danny!" she cried out, half turned-on and half irritated. His smile only grew wider as she smacked him across the shoulder. "There's gonna be another murder to investigate tonight if you don't get your ass out of this cab - I can see Stella's death glare even from over here." Danny opened his door and slid out of the seat, but once he was physically separated from her and ready to venture off into the night, he hesitated. Lindsay's smile grew fond. "Go, Messer," she said. "Before one of us does something stupid."

"Threat or promise?" he sing-songed. With one last look, he finally closed the door, fist tapping the chipped metal roof as the taxi rushed off to Staten Island. Danny sighed heavily and trudged over to where his kit sat on the ground next to the corpse. The way the metal glinted in the streetlights, it seemed to be mocking him.

"That Lindsay?" Stella asked, feigning disinterest. Her face never lifted from the digital camera around her neck, but Danny could hear the curiosity in her voice.

"Yeah," he said simply. Now she did look up, eyebrow raised in question. "I was pickin' her up from the airport when we got called in." He winced at how utterly lame the story sounded, even to his own ears, but Stella only nodded.

"Glove up, let's go." Danny snapped open his case and did as he was told. He fingered the frayed edges of the rope around their victim's neck. "Ligature marks suggest a fall."

"But look at the fingernail scrapings around it," Stella countered. "He fought back." Danny shrugged.

"Most people do, hangin' over a river knowin' they're about to die. It's why people usually use a gun or pills instead." Stella fixed him with a glare.

"Thank you, Danny, for that lesson in CSI 101," she spat. Danny bristled.

"Hey, I'm just offerin' my opinion."

"Yeah well, I'm the senior investigator, so mine trumps. Go process treads."

Danny grunted and shuffled over towards the skid marks she had directed him to. He knew he was being a snot - no case should be dismissed so easily, even if it appeared to be open-and-shut. But lack of sleep combined with the desire to be with Lindsay was making him pissy. Usually he loved his job. Usually there was nothing he'd rather be doing than working a case. It was strange - he'd had girlfriends before. He'd had girlfriends that were gorgeous, smart, great in bed, that he loved spending time with. But he'd never gotten the same rush from sex that he did when he was hot on the heels of a suspect, knowing that his analysis of the evidence was the key to putting a criminal behind bars. Yet one night next to Lindsay Monroe and his head was full of her, with no room for science. He would gladly chuck his kit into the river if it meant he could go home and be with her again.

Danny groaned. Thinking of Lindsay right now wasn't going to help him get out of here any sooner. He focused on the burnt rubber on the ground.

It was going to be a _long_ night.

* * *

Lindsay exited the cab and was greeted by a sight quite similar to the one she had just watched Danny walk into. Spinning red and blue danced merrily against the drab concrete walls of the warehouse district, the chatter of police scanners providing accompaniment. She spotted Mac easily, bent next to their victim with a thermometer buried deep into the liver. He smirked when Lindsay approached.

"Urban cowboy to the rescue?" he teased. Lindsay narrowed her eyes in confusion, then widened them when she remembered the straw hat still perched atop her head. Blushing furiously, she snatched it off.

"Sorry," she muttered. "Forgot." His chuckle followed her to the equipment truck. She left the hat sitting on top of her bags and withdrew her kit. The weight was solid and familiar in her hands and she smiled at the heft of it, the cool metal handle settling comfortably into her palm. Mac jotted down the liver temperature in his notepad and began wiping blood off of the thermometer. Lindsay knelt beside him.

"No trace of water anywhere?" she asked. Mac shook his head.

"Not a drop. Clothes aren't even damp. Liver temp says he's been dead less than an hour, so unless the perp hit him with a hairdryer this wasn't your standard drown-and-dump." Nodding, Lindsay withdrew a stack of specimen envelopes and went about taking fingernail scrapings, searching for particles adhering to the clothing. The rhythm was second nature by now, and she lost herself easily within it. So much so, in fact, that when Mac spoke to her she barely heard him.

"What?" she asked, still mentally focused on the shard of plastic between her tweezers, retrieved from the vic's pants cuff. Mac smiled fondly.

"How was home?" he asked. Lindsay's mind instantly flashed to this morning, Danny stretched out beside her in her childhood bed. She bit back the smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Good," she answered honestly. "The trial concluded yesterday."

"And?" Finally she allowed the smile to stretch fully across her mouth.

"Guilty," she reported. One of the uniforms was waving Mac over to a distraught woman standing at the border of the police tape. Mac stood. On his way, he paused to squeeze Lindsay's shoulder. Her smile widened.

Depositing the plastic into an envelope, Lindsay sealed and labeled it. She fell once again into the gentle cadence of processing, methodically checking for foreign substances and measuring shoeprints with the rush of heavy traffic thrumming in the background - no lowing cattle here. She almost missed the quiet, but though New York was a far cry from Bozeman, she knew deep in her heart that this was where she belonged. She attacked the task with single-minded determination - this was what she was born for. What had once seemed just a means to an end, a way to catch the bastard who had murdered her friends, had become so much more than a job. It was her reason to get up in the morning, what drove and pushed her forward. It had given her a second family in Mac and Stella and the lab that she often thought of as home. And it had brought her Danny, her rock, her...something, and yet her everything.

Death, in a convoluted and roundabout way, had afforded her a new life.

* * *

Danny was a city boy, through and through. Though his impromptu cross-country trip had certainly given him new appreciation for the sprawling wheat fields of the northwest, he was most at home on crowded, smoggy streets, boxed in by towering glass-and-chrome monstrosities. He preferred the bustle of constant traffic and blaring sirens to silence and cud-chewing cattle.

Still, he had to admit that he liked the cowboy hat. Making sure no one was watching him, Danny snuck a peek at his reflection in the glass wall of his office. He gave himself a rakish grin and knocked the brim back. Even though it was a bit tight around his forehead - clearly made for Lindsay's much smaller one - he liked the feel of it. Spotting Hawkes coming down the hallway, Danny backed away from his preening and hurried back to his computer to run the tire treads from tonight's scene. Hawkes nodded in acknowledgement as he passed, eyeing the hat in confusion but saying nothing. Danny supposed he might as well get used to that look if he wanted to continue wearing it. Logically, he knew that he should probably take it off. Not only did it look unprofessional (not that professionalism was usually on the top of Danny's priority list), but it also might as well have been a gigantic, blinking neon sign displaying his attachment to Lindsay. Thanks to the nickname he'd given her, everyone in the lab - right down to the weekend temps - knew that Lindsay Monroe was a country girl.

They hadn't planned this far ahead - discussed what would happen at work, whether they would tell the others. As things stood, everything was very much up in the air. Danny knew that he was fully prepared to steamroll straight ahead, and all signs seemed to indicate that Lindsay was on the same page, but he still wasn't quite ready to let go of his last few apprehensions, for fear that this would all come tumbling down around him. They were in-between and undefined, and inviting the rest of the lab to gossip about their tentative situation was unlikely to be a good idea. Still, the cowboy hat remained in place - Danny knew that he was going to have to channel Lindsay's unshakeable calm to steer him through the remainder of this case without incident.

The database shuffled through entries for only a few minutes before finally settling on a Ford Taurus. Danny sighed. Inevitable, really, that when he so desperately wanted to close the case it would confound him by turning up one of the most popular cars in the country. He printed out the results and took off towards Trace to show Stella.

Flack was the first one that spotted him. Danny tried to avoid his gaze, but the hat made it a bit difficult. Flack grabbed his arm and cornered him at the entrance to DNA.

"I called you three times this weekend. Where have you been?" he demanded. Danny smirked.

"Well aren't you the needy girlfriend?" he said dryly. "Want me to sign a permission slip next time?" Flack narrowed his eyes, ticking off his suspicions on his fingers as he voiced them.

"You always call me back, because you have no other friends. You're wearing the same clothes you were wearing two days ago. Stella says you claim to have picked Monroe up at the airport, which is ridiculous because you would have borrowed my car instead of paying all that cab fare. She lives in the country, and now you suddenly look like the Marlboro Man." Danny gaped wordlessly. "Oh, and also? You've got a hickey on your neck," Flack added nonchalantly.

Sometimes it really sucked having a best friend who was a cop.

* * *

By the time Lindsay finally arrived at her apartment, it was one in the afternoon. She could have been home at eleven thirty, but she had insisted on staying to help Mac with the paperwork. Under normal circumstances, she would have insisted upon unpacking her bags, but she was too exhausted to care at this point, and left them propped up against the side of the couch. She headed directly for her bedroom and the second drawer in her dresser - her pajamas. She felt immediately more relaxed in a tank top and sweat pants, and flopped back onto the bed to revel in the feeling of freedom. She supposed that the exhaustion must have taken over completely, because the next thing she knew it was four forty, her room was dark, and there was someone pounding at her door.

Unsurprisingly, it was Danny waiting for her on the other side. His appearance was haggard, his mouth drawn and tired, but as soon as he saw her he grinned and tipped the brim of the cowboy hat he was still wearing.

"Howdy, ma'am," he drawled. Lindsay burst into giggles and yanked him into the apartment, his (her) hat toppling to the ground just inside the doorway. She hugged him fiercely, and his hands settled at her waist. "Well Montana, I know I was supposed to save some strength, but Stella took what was left of it. Blame her." Lindsay smiled contentedly. Despite the suggestive nature of her note, she didn't much mind what happened tonight as long as he was here beside her.

"Come on then, cowboy. Let's hit the haystacks." Danny laughed, toeing off his shoes as Lindsay shucked him of his jacket. She led him into her room and watched openly as he continued to disrobe, removing his button-down and his jeans. He looked so helplessly out-of-place in her decidedly girly bedroom, and floundered for a moment before setting his clothes carefully onto her armchair and depositing his glasses on top of the pile. When he turned back to face her, Lindsay nibbled her bottom lip. Danny grinned and cocked an eyebrow.

"Kinda sexy, right?" he joked. Lindsay crossed the room in two quick strides to kiss him. Oh, he knew he was right - more than right. But what she wouldn't tell him was that the lack of the frames obscuring his face didn't make him look manlier, like he thought they did. If anything, they made him look younger; more open and vulnerable. She pressed kisses to his jaw, down his neck, feeling his stubble scrape her lips in the most delicious way. Danny led her the few sideways steps to the bed and they collapsed onto it still entangled together. He groaned, gripping her against him, and she felt the evidence of his interest in furthering their activities poke her thigh.

"God, I just wanna keep kissin' you," he muttered into her neck. Lindsay smiled.

"But?" she prodded.

"But I'm gonna be asleep in about three minutes here." She rearranged them on the bed, kicking his legs towards the center of it and turning so that she her back was spooned against his front.

"I suppose you can be forgiven this once," she teased.

For someone who could be so gruff and distant, Danny was the most comfortable person she'd ever slept next to. He held her firmly, but didn't squeeze her breath away; situated himself intimately against her but didn't act as if this was only a precursor to sex. It was a fact that Lindsay would happily keep to herself: that Danny Messer, the playboy of the CSI lab, was a cuddler. He leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

"'Night Montana," he murmured. Lindsay smiled as he pulled her closer, her eyes drifting shut.

* * *

The alarm clock sounding off at 6 a.m. was a jolt to Danny's system. It was shrill and jarring and didn't show any signs of ceasing on its own. While he preferred to be awakened by the radio, Lindsay had clearly purchased some sort of diabolical torture device that was slowly but surely eroding his eardrums. Grunting, he shoved her.

"Make it stop," he whined. Lindsay's arm flopped onto the nightstand and fumbled for her clock, flicking the switch so that the blasted noise finally stopped. Danny sighed contentedly and buried his nose further into Lindsay's hair, his hand trailing across her stomach. Her own fingers came to tangle in his and attempted to pull them away.

"Don't get too comfortable there," she warned. "We've gotta get ready for work." Danny tugged their linked hands downward, his nimble fingers sliding into the juncture of her thighs. Lindsay squirmed beneath his touch and snatched her hand away. "Danny, stop," she pleaded. Her body curved into his hand, betraying her words, and Danny grinned triumphantly.

"Work with me here, Montana," he urged. "We've got time." He reached out and hooked his pinky into the waistband of her sweatpants, tugging them a few inches downwards. Lindsay whimpered.

"We don't," she insisted breathlessly. Danny teased his fingers across the thin fabric of her underwear. "I have to...ah...I have to take a shower. And you have to go back to your place and get some new clothes before people start thinking that you're homeless." Danny laughed and edged one finger beneath the waistband of her panties.

"I have a change of clothes in my locker. And you have plenty of time to take a shower." He cupped her bare skin, fingers just skimming her entrance. He smirked upon discovering that she was already dripping wet. Lindsay seemed to have accepted his persuasion, because she wiggled her ass against him. Danny's lower body jumped at the contact, and he yanked her hips back against his. And then Lindsay took matters into her own hands. She rotated in his arms so that they were face to face and attacked his mouth with desperate kisses. Danny accepted eagerly, especially when she rolled them so that she was on top. Danny had no objections. Her legs spread over his hips only made things easier, and Danny cupped one cheek in each hand to offer encouragement that Lindsay was all too happy to receive. He rolled them over once more, moving his body down so that he could lift her t-shirt and lick a slow circle around her belly-button. Lindsay cried out and finally scrambled out from beneath him to stand next to the bed. She was breathing heavily, her hair in complete disarray. Danny tucked a hand behind his head and grinned.

"Too much?" he asked. Lindsay blew out a breath.

"Yeah." He extended his free hand to loosely clasp her fingers. "Danny, I want to. _God_, I want to. But not when we're racing against the clock to make it into work on time. Plus, people are going to find out about us eventually. And when they do, I want them to see that we can still be professional, so no coming in together late." Danny smiled fondly.

"Yeah, I hear 'ya," he agreed. Unable to help himself, he waggled his eyebrows at her. "So about that shower? You know if we take one together we could save a lot of time. Not to mention - water conservation, very important." Lindsay squeezed his hand.

"Easy, tiger," she laughed. Danny shrugged.

"Can't blame a guy for trying."

* * *

  
Despite his best seduction efforts, they did indeed shower separately (under cold water, naturally), and arrived at work on time. Ten minutes early, even, giving him plenty of time to duck into the locker room and change. Loitering on the subway stairs, Danny sniffed at the sleeve of his shirt and wrinkled his nose. "I smell like a girl," he complained. Lindsay rolled her eyes.

"Well it's better than how you smelled last night, that's all I have to say." Danny resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her. Barely. To retaliate, he shoved her against the handrail and grabbed her by the back of the head, kissing her fiercely. Lindsay pulled back with a disapproving glare, hyper-aware of how easily any of their co-workers could spot them. "You are extremely annoying, Messer, has anyone ever told you that before?" Danny grinned as he jogged the last few steps and rounded the corner up to ground level.

"Part of my charm."

They entered the doors side-by-side, but once in the building Danny felt the playful nature of the morning begin to wear off. Much as he liked to tease, he valued his job above just about everything else, and knew that Lindsay felt the same. So he forced himself to remain stoic, not rest his hand at the small of her back like he longed to. He gave her a curt nod at the turn-off to the locker room and headed down the hallway. And really, it was only inevitable that he ran into Flack on his way in. His best friend gave him the once-over and smirked.

"You smell like a chick," he informed him.

Danny banged his head against his locker and prayed for a drugged-out perp to hurl on Flack's disgustingly shiny shoes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Don't Be Hasty (2a/5)  
Angelus (_no_place__)  
See first chapter for disclaimer, etc.**

**Author's Notes:** Between "Catch the Wind" and this installment, I've spent so much time with these characters that I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that my version of Lindsay's family is not, in fact, canon. Watching "Green Piece", the first thing I thought was "Oh, Stevie and Kenny are _not_ gonna be happy about this."

I debated whether or not to follow the on-screen action exactly, worried it would feel like a re-hash, but at the same time I felt like skimming over it seemed lazy, especially if I would be fleshing out the in-between bits, so I went for broke. And let me tell you what a pain that was! Thank god for YouTube, as my DVD's were, at the time of writing this, on the other side of the globe. I've probably spelled some stuff wrong, like names of bit characters or types of wine, but have some pity.

And re: the change in number of chapters, I decided to expand this to 5 parts instead of just 3 - same amount of material I originally had planned, just broken into more manageable chunks because I totally underestimated how much wordspace it was going to take up. This chapter was slow-going, but I've had this first half sitting uselessly on my hard drive for ages now - it's time to get it out there so I can focus on completing the second half. I know that I only post sporadically, and my interest in the fandom is waning, but I am very committed to this series, and I do try and work on it as regularly as I can.

And for those of you wondering: the 27-foot-tall penguin is indeed real - I don't think I could have made that up if I tried.

~*~

Lindsay was pretty sure that Flack knew there was something going on. She didn't know whether Danny had told him, or he had figured it out on his own (she'd lay even odds on both), but when she climbed into the passenger's seat of his squad car, he was grinning at her from behind the wheel.

"You smell nice today," he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Lindsay raised an eyebrow, hearing Danny snort from the backseat. Flack chuckled and cranked the motor.

"I'll let you borrow my perfume next time," she promised. Danny caught her eye in the rear-view mirror and she blushed, looking down at her hands.

She had a hunch that Mac had assigned them a case together on purpose; she couldn't say that she minded. They would, of course, eventually have to work separately, but at the moment she didn't want to let him out of her sight for a minute. She was still trying not to pinch herself - this was _happening_. After all this time, the weight was off of her shoulders, she and Danny were finally together, and happy, and _seriously_ - who would have predicted that a year and a half ago?

The scene was just a few minutes from the lab; Lindsay hummed along with Flack's big band music until they pulled up to the curb in front of Alec Green's restaurant. The entrance was a veritable circus, swarming with media hounds, police officers, and curious onlookers. Flack keyed off the ignition and groaned audibly.

"Okay kids, back to the real world," he announced. "Who's questioning and who's photographing?" Lindsay looked over her shoulder at Danny.

"You go shoot," he said with a wave of his hand. "You've been through enough these last few days." Lindsay glared.

"Danny, I'm fine," she insisted, an edge to her voice. If he was going to start pulling the tough-guy act, this was going to be over before it had even really started. He at least had the decency to look sheepish.

"I know," he said softly. "But just this once, do it for me? Come on, Kenny would never let me live it down if I sent you into that madhouse your first day back." Through the window, Flack saw that one of the photogs had spotted him, and was headed for the car.

"Take the inside, Linds," he advised. "It's gonna be a nightmare out here." Unhooking his seat belt, he exited the car to greet the approaching journalist. Lindsay sighed, knowing he was right.

"Fine," she acquiesced. Danny nodded gratefully. They climbed out of their respective doors and met him at the trunk, where Lindsay took the camera case and both of their kits, slinging all three straps across her shoulders. Danny slammed the trunk closed and shoved her behind him as they elbowed their way through the crowd to the crime scene tape at the door. Lindsay shielded the equipment as best she could while he made a path. With all the commotion going on, she had to shout to be heard.

"Just so we're clear, I'm humoring you because you were so nice to me this weekend, and because it's easier to let you be annoying than to pay you back for your plane ticket. But after today, it stops. Having one of Kenny is bad enough, not to mention my mom, and Jack, _and_ Dallas and Pablo." Danny ducked under the yellow plastic barrier, holding it up for Lindsay as well. She shrugged her shoulders to redistribute the weight of the cases she was carrying, glad to be clear of the crush of bodies. Danny was peering down at her.

"I got no interest in bein' your brother," he promised. The corner of his mouth quirked upwards into a smirk, and Lindsay couldn't stop hers from doing the same.

"Fine. You're off the hook. Go keep Flack company." The smirk stretched into a full-blown grin, and he knocked his shoulder into hers as he headed back out into the fray.

A uniform showed Lindsay down a maze of hallways until they finally arrived at the stairs to the basement. She descended to the bottom, grateful for somewhere to dump all of the equipment. From the smaller camera case she withdrew one of the lab's trusty Nikons and positioned the nylon strap at the back of her neck as she removed the lens cap. The basement cellar was dark and musty-smelling, but cleaner than a lot of crime scenes she'd encountered, so there was that to be thankful for. Lindsay started in the far corner, marking and photographing anything that looked the least bit suspicious. She had reached the corpse at the center of the room by the time she heard the chatter of police radio and the clickety-clack of shoes coming down the wooden stairs behind her.

"Meet the former future of the Manhattan foodie scene: Alec Green, 38 years old," Flack introduced them, Danny trailing close behind. "This was his third restaurant - he was considered one of the greatest chefs in the country under 40."

"Who found him?" Danny asked. He dug a pair of gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on, the sound of snapping latex echoing against the cement.

"Manager," Flack reported. "Today was the big opening day. Last night was invited dress - critics, wine distributors...mucky-mucks."

"Hey, I thought you caught the U.N. case," Lindsay blurted out, suddenly remembering the parts of the morning debrief that didn't involve studiously avoiding Danny's gaze.

"Oh, I did," he confirmed. "Saturday night in the city, Linds - you know how it is." Oh, she did. The rapid-fire pace of New York was something that could never be duplicated in Bozeman, Montana, and she was more than happy to let it scoop her back up into its momentum.

"Good to be back," she said, risking a glance at Danny. He grinned, ducking his head back to examine the body. Lindsay knelt to do the same. "The rigor shows he's been dead 12 hours at least," she reported.

"He may have been dead while the guests were still eatin' their creme brulee last night," Danny chimed in. Lindsay clicked on her flashlight, aiming it at the fatal wound in Green's chest while Danny continued bagging particulate samples.

"That's an odd corkscrew," she mused aloud when the light glinted off the murder weapon. "It's inscribed with something; it looks like some kind of award."

"Flack, who's got access to the vault?" Danny called over his shoulder.

"No one." Flack had his own flashlight out, sweeping it across their victim's wares that lined the shelves of the room. "This vault was Alec's pride and joy, the only way in was through him."

"So this is where they house the million-dollar grape juice, huh?" Danny stood to load a fresh set of batteries into his flashlight, clearly not sharing his best friend's status as a wine connoisseur.

"Are you kidding me? This place is amazing," Flack murmured. "Molton Rothschild, Monterey, Barbaresco...the wine in this vault, Dan? Worth tens of thousands of dollars."

"What do you know?" Danny scoffed.

"Flack, I think Danny's kind of wine is the house Chianti," Lindsay teased. Flack laughed.

"See that's where you're wrong," Danny corrected. "My favorite kind of wine? Is beer." All three of them chuckled, knowing it to be true. And god, was Flack right - it _was_ good to be back. Lindsay hadn't realized just how much she'd missed this - working, joking, laughing. All of the day-to-day things that she'd grown so accustomed to over the past 18 months.

"Alright, we've got lots of glass and wine spatter," Danny observed. "Looks like the bottle was open when it was broken. So it didn't come from the wine rack."

"Came from the table over here," Flack deducted.

"So we've got a glass of wine, a stoppered bottle...somebody opened a bottle to taste it. And then, maybe, it got dropped in a struggle," Lindsay guessed. Danny shook his head.

"From the diameter of the spatter, it looks like the bottle was thrown, and thrown hard."

"Okay, so there's a fight and somebody throws a wine bottle at our vic," Flack summed up.

"Then maybe Alec rushes the attacker," Lindsay suggested. She observed the mess, trying to picture it in her mind. Green in his chef's apron, his mystery assailant only a shadowy figure - they still didn't know if they were looking for a man or a woman. So much of the evidence lay strewn across the cement floor, yet to be processed; they might as well have been working blind.

"And then he gets, uh...screwed to death," Danny concluded. Lindsay grinned, feeling ridiculous. It was a lame joke, which Flack seemed to agree with her on.

"6.5, Mess. Little shaky on the landing." And with that, he took off back upstairs and into the fray, leaving Danny still grinning proudly. Lindsay elbowed him on her way to retrieve the tweezers from her kit. God, it was like some sort of sickness - one weekend of making out with Danny Messer and she was going weak in the knees like a schoolgirl. How the hell was she ever going to be able to work once she actually slept with the guy?

They settled into a comfortable rhythm - one that was completely new to Lindsay. Most of her and Danny's professional careers had been spent dancing around what was between the two of them. But now that it was out in the open and resolved (if not yet consummated), there was an ease that they had never quite managed to obtain before. For once, Lindsay found herself flirting with Danny instead of the other way around, and he was only too happy to play along. He was so..._happy_ today. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, joking with Flack, and dear lord, could that shirt _be_ any tighter? Lindsay was glad that it was currently covered by his jacket, because the glimpse of it she had caught before they climbed into the car had been more than enough to set her libido aflame.

Flack had been glancing at them out of the corner of his eye all morning, like he was expecting them to jump each other as soon as his back was turned. It was nice, working with him instead of Mac - Lindsay didn't feel like she had to hide her affection for Danny (which, to be honest, they'd never exactly been discrete about). But maybe she was reading him wrong - maybe he was just suspicious but didn't know for sure. Either way, she knew that Flack was on their side, and that was comforting. Still, if he kept shooting them that _look_, she was going to kill him.

But, she was happy to note, their status change hadn't affected their work. Despite the professionals she knew both herself and Danny to be, she had legitimately worried as to whether or not they could carry this off. But without all of the personal barriers between them, they had reached a whole new level of connectivity. There was this soaring feeling in Lindsay's chest that she knew was utterly ridiculous, yet at the same time...

She glanced over at Danny, swabbing at a blood drop on the ground and noting the gravitational pull. He looked up and smiled back, and her heart thumped just a bit louder.

Together, it felt like they could do anything.

Lindsay concentrated on the sliver of pink acrylic nail caught in her tweezers, desperate for something to get her mind off of Danny. She bagged and labeled it, the action so rote that she was fairly certain she could do it in her sleep. Next, she spotted a small section of silver chain. With this she repeated the process. She was just slipping the evidence bag into her pocket when Danny came up behind her. He called her name to get her attention and Lindsay followed his gaze to Green's body - more specifically, Green's mouth, which was..._moving_. They stared, confused, as a bulge grew in Green's cheek, then moved to his lips. From the seam crawled a large cockroach.

"What exactly was this chef cookin' last night?" Danny said in disgust. The roach broke away from the dead man's lips, but before it could get anywhere Lindsay grabbed a wineglass and upturned it on top of the offending insect.

"God I love my job," she muttered sarcastically. Shoving the glass a little, she shuddered in revulsion as the roach skittered around its invisible entrapment. "Okay, who gets roach detail?" she asked, sending pleading looks towards Danny. He held his hands up in the air and took a step backwards.

"Oh, no. He's all yours." Lindsay rolled her eyes.

"So all that macho crap goes out the window as soon as it gets gross? Way to be the white knight, Messer."

"Chain of evidence, Monroe," Danny shot back. "You found it, you process it." Lindsay glared, but only half-halfheartedly; to tell the truth, she'd much rather have him be like this than walking on eggshells around her.

"Fine," she said rising to stand. She held out her fist. Danny nodded and extended his own. They shook once, twice, three times before Danny's paper covered her rock. Lindsay groaned, Danny's hand still clasped around hers. Even through both of their gloves, his skin warmed hers.

"Hey," he said, tugging her just a bit closer. "I promise I'll make it up to you." Lindsay kept her face neutral.

"Better be damn good, cowboy," she said sullenly. Danny leaned in, as Flack clattered back down the stairs. He looked from Lindsay to Danny, smirking.

"You two ready to go, or do you need to be alone for a minute?" he asked. Lindsay bent down and tore a section of cardboard from the back of her notepad, sliding it under the wineglass to make their suspect's cage portable. She lifted the glass in front of Flack's face.

"Look who's sharing the ride home with us," she announced sunnily. "Flack, meet our new friend Donnie." Flack blanched visibly.

"You guys are sick," he stated. With that, he did an about-face and ran back up the steps like his feet were on fire. Lindsay laughed and carefully slid Donnie into the evidence container Danny had proffered, snapping the lid shut with a satisfying click. She frowned, observing the insect's limited range of movement.

"Do you think we should poke holes in the top?" she asked, slightly worried about the creature despite herself. Danny shook his head vehemently.

"Those things can survive a nuclear holocaust, I think it'll survive the car ride to the lab. But it's cute that you care." Lindsay glanced at him sidelong.

"That's sweet. But don't think you're off the hook."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Danny replied, closing his case and following her up the basement steps and back into the light of day.

~*~

By the time Flack and Danny had conducted their interview (a complete bust) and returned to the lab where they had dropped off Lindsay and the evidence just 45 minutes beforehand, Danny was feeling more than a little guilty for sticking his partner with their little critter friend. He hopped out of the car as soon as Flack pulled it into a parking spot, and his best friend rolled his eyes.

"Lindsay's a big girl Messer," he commented. "We haven't even been gone an hour, I think she probably managed to fend for herself." Danny scowled.

"You ever gonna get off my case about her?" he asked, fingers tightening around the edge of the car door.

"You gonna tell me what happened this weekend?" Flack countered. Danny narrowed his eyes and slammed the door shut. He heard Flack's chuckle follow him to the elevator even through the metal and glass. He stopped by autopsy to hear Sid's findings, and after a few minutes in the older man's presence, he felt himself begin to calm down. It was stupid, getting annoyed with Flack for asking questions that he himself would undoubtedly be asking were the situations reversed. And it wasn't that he didn't trust Flack - quite the opposite. Plus, the guy owed him for that time that Danny had caught him making out with Aiden. It was just that this thing with Lindsay was so new, so private. He knew he didn't have to keep it a secret, but he didn't want to gossip about it either - Lindsay was more to him than the locker room details he'd shared about his previous girlfriends.

God, he really had it bad, didn't he? Danny took the file folder from Sid's hands and headed eagerly towards Trace. He read as he walked, head still buried in the case file as he strode through the door to the lab.

"Sid confirmed COD," he reported. "Aortic tear and esophageal trauma due to corkscrew impalement." When he looked up, he caught the twinkle in Lindsay's eye. Oh, she had found something good.

"Did you get anything off the corkscrew?" she asked. She was going to make him work for it. It was one of the most adorable quirks about her - the pure excitement she got from showing off her knowledge. So he played along. Curiosity - a criminalist's downfall.

"Yeah, male epithelials on the handle. Unknown donor though, no hits in CODIS. But that pink trace we found? Was composed of resin and acrylic - it's a fake nail. The end was jagged, broken off...could be related to the signs of struggle at the scene." The way her eyebrow rose at his declaration made him fairly sure that she had already figured out the plastic's origin. Damn, she was good.

"Did Adam get anything off the bottle?" she asked innocently. Danny checked the notations he'd made in the file as he followed her over to the table.

"Nothing off the bottle, but he's looking at the ball bearing I found to see what it's made of, help us get a.....get an idea of what it is...." Danny trailed off as he finally spotted Donnie the cockroach. Washed clean of blood, the insect's back glistened with...rhinestones? What the hell? "Is that the creature we pulled from the vic's mouth?" he asked in disbelief. Lindsay grinned.

"Mm-hm," she answered calmly. "Madagascar hissing cockroach." She handed him the dish. Danny gave her a sidelong glance before inspecting their newest piece of evidence. She didn't at all appear to be affected by the bug, and he kind of loved that she was not a normal girl in situations like these. Not that he'd ever tell her that - "You're strange" rarely went over well with females, even when the sentiment was complimentary.

"Get this," she added. "This one is covered in three karats of cushion-cut emeralds and rubies. It's worth over a hundred thousand dollars." And the case just kept getting stranger.

"Get outta here," Danny muttered. "These are real stones?"

"Uh-huh. And I'm thinking that this chain was attached. Which makes this roach...jewelery. Or a pet. Or a jeweled pet." It was official now: he'd heard everything.

"A roach brooch," he proclaimed. Lindsay smiled.

"Hey, it could be the next thing," she suggested as she moved to check on one of the machines on the other side of the room. As she passed him, her hand trailed across his back. Danny didn't know if she was doing it on purpose or on instinct, but the heat from her tiny palm seared right through his shirt. "I mean isn't the cockroach kind of the unofficial mascot of New York?" she continued.

"Yeah, that's funny. Take it easy there, Mon-_tana_," he warned, exaggerating the accent. He knew that she was joking - New York was her home too, now more than ever. Danny cleared his throat and forced himself to concentrate on work - now was most definitely not the time to wax poetic. "So how'd this thing end up in the chef's mouth?" he wondered.

"I don't know." She sounded so defeated when she said it, as if despite what little evidence they had she was still upset that there was something she couldn't figure out. "But it's worth a lot of money. Maybe somebody lost it, or maybe it was stolen."

"And Alec Green had something to do with it."

"Well to answer that, we need to know who that roach brooch belonged to." Danny shrugged.

"Well, you know, it shouldn't be too hard - how many people out there put this much bling on a bug?"

He was right, as it turned out - a simple Google search turned up the website of Gavin Bridge, jeweler to the stars. Complete with a graphic of a cockroach scurrying across the screen.

"What is _wrong_ with this town?" Danny muttered. Lindsay jotted down the address from the screen and grabbed the car keys.

"Don't ask me - where I'm from people drive hours to see a 27-foot-tall talking penguin. Roach jewelery is just a different level of strange." She dangled the keys in front of Danny's face. "Also? I'm driving." Danny made a face at her back as she sped down the halls of the lab.


End file.
